A big game this evening, for Algeria. They lost their opening match but a win against South Korea will, in the light of Russia’s narrow defeat against Belgium a little earlier this evening, completely...

And so to the next in our series of pre-tournament football arts from that lovable scamp Dotmund, who today has stories of misfortune and distemper from Nigeria, Portugal, Russia & South Korea. You can...

“There’s enough material here for an entire conference,” said the psychiatrist in the Fawlty Towers episode entitled, funnily enough, ‘The Psychiatrist.’ Argentine coach Diego Armando Maradona, we are told, is a modern day Basil...

Statistics are often as misleading as they are informative. On one hand this game is between the 2004 European Championship winners and the 2002 World Cup Semi-Finalists. Another way of describing the game is between a side whose World Cup finals record outside their own country is just one win in seventeen games (and that over African minnows Togo) and the only European nation ever to play at a World Cup without scoring. At the outset, that may be harsh, as the South Koreans are showing that the co-hosting of the Cup in 2002 has been beneficial in the long-term as the 1994 World Cup was for the United States.

The 19th FIFA World Cup kicks off in eight weeks today, and as such Dotmund continues his almost-in-depth look ahead to this summer’s festivities. Today he continues his preview of each of the eight groups, having been sent foraging for facts on the internet with only his trusty big pencil for company. Up for examination in this week’s post, Group B.

For many people, major sports tournaments are the only occasion that national anthems are heard. These peculiar tunes have become a genre of their own, transcending the mere hymns that many of them were...

France 2-0 Togo / Switzerland 2-0 South Korea Have rumours of the France’s demise been exaggerated? Well, the media have been cruel to them this week, but it hasn’t been entirely without reason. France...

France 1-1 South Korea Oh dear. Poor old France. Stop sniggering at the back. Whilst it’s easy to fill oneself with schadenfreude and have a good chuckle at Le Republique’s misfortune, we should take...